Chapter 82: From misfortune to an opportunity
"War..."
The world around me froze.
It was a weirdly tranquil moment, with everyone on the street looking up, to where the ringing of the bells came from.
Everyone needed a moment to process such news. And I wasn’t any different.
’War? With who? Here? When? Where? Will they try to conscript? Should we run?’
A myriad of questions rushed through my head as I attempted to make sense out of the news.
And within a second, they only got worse.
’Is it because of me? Did I raise a flag? In a world governed by fate, does raising flags actually work? Or maybe it’s because I’ve skewed my situation too much with this broken system of mine?’
Within a single second, I went from the stunned attempts at processing the news to spiraling down the abyss of increasingly more random ideas.
"Leon!"
Selia grabbed me by my shoulders and shook me, forcing me out of the spiraling loop of negative thoughts.
"Snap out of it!"
Could I be blamed?
I was the child of the age of decay. Born in the peak times of prosperity, when war and conflict were something that only ever happened far away, off on the other end of the world. Then, as I grew up, the world progressively turned worse and worse, to the point where an incoming alien invasion would hardly make the news.
For me, war wasn’t something that I’ve personally gone through but something that I’ve seen creep closer and closer with every passing month, every passing year, all the while the people responsible for my country only ever looked for ways to screw it even further.
Which is why, just this single word — war — was enough to put me in a rather unpleasant state, where my only thoughts were between escaping from this place with just the clothes I had on my back or taking the risk of taking my time to prepare an evacuation backpack first.
’I wasn’t willing to die for that mafia-run country back home, so there’s no way in hell I’m dying for this random shithole either,’ I thought, gritting my teeth and clenching my fists at the mere thought of putting my life on the line for something I didn’t associate with.
I was born, raised, and always believed myself to be a patriot. That I owed a debt to all those who came before me, endlessly throwing themselves against overwhelmingly powerful enemies, all for the sake of the country, the culture, freedom.
And then I watched how all of those values that I’ve held dear were twisted, perverted, made into something to be ashamed of.
The crimes of the past? My ancestors turned from victims to the perpetrators and then the responsible party. The potential of my fellow people unleashed once we finally cast aside the chains of the semi-occupation? Stifled by those in power who sold the country for scraps, all the while posing as saviors and great leaders.
By the time of my summoning, I’d turned from a full-fledged patriot to someone whom media branded with every offensive word they could find, all in a bid to turn my country into a dumping ground for the mistakes made by our arrogant neighbors.
A plan they pretty much succeeded at when they managed to install one of their own as the country’s prime minister.
And now, even in this entirely different world, I had to deal with war again?!
AGAIN?!
"LEON!"
Selia slapped me across the face.
The stinging pain of the slap, hurting as much on a physical level as it did on an emotional one, finally allowed me to properly shake off the negative feelings that I’d grown to repress at the very bottom of my soul.
’Come on man, you’ve decided to put it all aside already, didn’t you?’
Raising my hand to my burning cheek, I looked up to the sky and took a deep breath, reverting back to using the very same breathing technique that helped me out so many times.
"Yeah, sorry for that," I muttered as I slowly lowered my eyes, all the while continuing with the breathing pattern.
Now that the emotions I’d learned to continually repress came spilling out, I had to put all the more effort to shove them down to the bottom of my soul.
"Listen, what this ringing announces isn’t the outbreak of hostilities, but that the country is now officially preparing to go to war," Selia quickly explained as much as she could with as few words as possible.
Once again, this weird ability for us to share our emotions came in clutch, allowing her to feel just how strongly I felt about war.
And judging by the fires of wrath that I could see at the bottom of her eyes, fires that weren’t there before, this emotion-sharing bond of ours might’ve worked a little bit too well.
’Nothing good will come if she has to deal with all those emotions, especially if she didn’t learn how to ignore them,’ I realized, only to then push myself even further to ignore the returning wave of all the stuff that I’d repressed.
Someone once said, there’s only so many times you can repeat "it is what it is," only so many times you can pretend that there’s no point worrying about stuff you have no influence over.
I’d found several dozens of ways to keep up with the country news and not let the government fuck-up after government fuck-up radicalize me. I saw first-hand how quickly the whole country moved on from the tragedy of a man that literally set himself on fire in a protest, with the memory of such an event soon fading from the general memory.
I had no other choice but to learn how to adapt to this constant inflow of information about how my government was finding constant new ways to screw everyone — me included — over. A little bit of a vent here, a little bit of an online rant there, and I could keep going.
Selia, though?
Her venting episode could devastate a town. Her ranting could level cities. And she wasn’t prepared, as someone not born in a world stuck in an informational era, to deal with the amount of negative information I’d consumed on a daily basis.
Meaning, I couldn’t afford to let even a single memory of those times slip through my guard, I couldn’t allow my emotions from back then to resurface now.
Which is why, rather than thinking about the infuriating past, I simply locked my eyes on Selia’s lovely face, her two pale-blue eyes, the slight shine of her skin, the straight bridge of her small nose, the lovely curvature of her crimson-red lips...
"Haaah..." I breathed out a long sigh, already exhausted from all the mental battling I went through in the span of just a few seconds. "Yeah, I understand," I nodded my head. "What does the ringing of those bells mean for us, then?"
"Us?" Selia squinted her eyes a bit, her face relaxing somewhat now that I’d managed to push those past emotions aside, freeing her from the shadow of the burden I was doomed to carry until the end of my days. "If you mean the two of us, then nothing really should change," she shook her shoulders. "Same if you mean this town. It’s on the frontier, but not on the frontier that’s likely to spark the war," she added as she looked around, indicating for me to do the same.
And with only a few moments passing since the ringing of the bell started, the people around...
They all dropped their attitude from before, easily putting the news aside and returning to whatever they were doing.
And it was this nonchalant disregard of the news that finally convinced me of the most important part of it all.
’Whatever this war is... It’s unlikely to affect this place all that much, huh?’
Just like back on Earth, it was going to be a war I would only hear about in the news, rather than a tragedy I would have to witness myself.
"I mean..." Selia’s face twitched. "I can’t say absolutely nothing will change," she then added in a slightly lower voice. "Some products might become hard to get. The price of food, armors, and weapons is likely to increase. Oh," her smile suddenly brightened up, "since it’s rather likely there will be no more coal delivered to the town, Greg’s side business is likely to boom. But beyond that?"
Selia shook her head before climbing up on her tiptoes and then reaching out with her hand to rustle my hair with a relaxed smile on her face.
"Beyond that, there’s no real reason for you to be worried about yourself, me, or anyone in this place. Whether this kingdom will win the war or lose it, the war itself is quite unlikely to ever reach us. That is," she added as her smile turned into a smirk, "unless you will want to intervene in it. But after what I felt?"
Selia looked up into my face for a moment before shaking her head and pushing her arms underneath mine before pressing herself into my chest.
Then, she just turned silent, simply giving me a light, reassuring hug while giving me all the time in the world to sort out my thoughts.
’So, while the country will switch to a military focus, affecting the trading lines between this town and the kingdom’s interior, we are rather likely to be left to our own devices, huh?’
I took a deep breath. Yet, rather than letting it out, I held it in my lungs for as long as I physically could. Then and only then did I allow the carbon dioxide out of my lungs, relaxing as I breathed out and sort of collapsing deeper into Saintess’ hug.
"You know, now that I think about it..."
I hesitated for a moment before shifting my head a little to bring my lips over to Selia’s ear.
"With how this war is likely to isolate this place from the rest of the kingdom even further than it is already isolated by the distance and its remoteness..."
I held my words for a while, hesitating whether or not to utter them, worried about raising another unfortunate flag if I wasn’t careful.
"Yeah?" Selia whispered back, also turning her head towards mine, only for the two of us to end up with our foreheads pressing against each other, almost as if we were a couple on the verge of passionately, if not outright violently, making out right here, in the middle of the street.
"Maybe this war isn’t erupting to balance all the lucky fate I’ve been getting through my system..." I whispered. "Maybe it’s actually a continuation of my streak of good fortune?"
I turned my head and raised my fist to my mouth to clear my throat.
"Maybe..." I added as I looked down the street, at the town I was slowly starting to legitimately like and enjoy.
"Maybe it’s just an opportunity for me to effectively take over this whole place?"